A Tea Party candidate for Idaho’s House of Representatives defended himself against allegations of hypocrisy following an NBC News article in which he admitted to signing his entire family up for Medicaid while running on a platform that calls for the dismantling of all government programs.

Collett, a self-employed software developer by trade, went on to note that his ten children — two biological, eight adopted — are all recipients of health insurance through the government’s Medicaid program, and acknowledged that “there are a lot of people out there that’ll cry foul” over the dissonance.

And, indeed, many people did visit Collett’s personal site shortly afterward to ask him what the hell.

They’ve got their own baby clothes, their own universities, and now they have their own beauty pageant. On July 4th weekend of 2012, the inaugural of edition of Miss Liberty America will be held in Las Vegas, with the “ultimate mission of promoting Liberty, the military, and the documents of our founding fathers.” In honor of those ideals, tea baggers will choose a winner from a field of young, swimsuit-clad female contestants who will have to shoot firearms and answer questions about the Constitution.

The brain behind the event is Alicia Hayes-Roberts, sister of Tea Party presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, who explains the mission on the Miss Liberty America website:

MISS LIBERTY AMERICA is dedicated to discovering America’s elite feminine patriots and giving them the opportunity on a national stage to showcase their patriotism, intelligence, talent, and beauty. The contestants will be judged in categories of personal interview, swimsuit, evening gown, beauty, talent, questions regarding the documents of
America’s founding fathers, and Marksmanship!

In a special twenty-minute commentary, Keith Olbermann blisteringly indicts this election season's wave of "tea party candidates," entirely by quoting their own words. The picture revealed is of "a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get." Via MSNBC:

Don't say you weren't warned about these people. From Tom Diemer at AOL's Politics Daily:

A Rand Paul supporter stomped on the head of a MoveOn.org volunteer Monday night outside of a debate between the Kentucky Senate candidate and his opponent, Jack Conway.
The woman, identified by CNN as Lauren Valle, was pushed to the ground -- her blond wig was pulled off in the scuffle -- and then held down...

New York Magazine notes an interesting debate exchange between Delaware Republican candidate for Senate Christine O'Donnell and her opponent Chris Coons: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" The situation is laden with irony, of course, as O'Donnell was a "Constitutional Government fellow" at the conservative Claremont Institute. This is a pretty good indication of the level of constitutional knowledge in the Tea Bagger movement.

Editorial cartoonist Ward Sutton gave the Boston Globe‘s comics page a tea-party-friendly makeover; “There’s a growing concern among a certain segment of the country that the comics page is out of step with mainstream values.” Check out the patriotic versions of strips such as Calvin and Hobbes:

Fire From The Heartland is a new DVD about the "rise of the conservative woman." The most scary thing about this trailer is that it exemplifies the trend/movement/meme of Sarah Palin-types identifying themselves as "mama grizzlies".

Recently, an article by Tim Wise explored the idea of a Tea Party movement dominated by radical black Americans. I’m not familiar enough to comment on the rest of Tim Wise’s body of work definitively having never read any of his books. However, the article in question presents a golden opportunity to discuss race in America–something that I have wanted to do for some time. While black and Hispanic Americans certainly endure a great deal of racism ranging from the benign (“You’re very articulate for a black man” or the awkward “Gimme some skin, bruvvah!” type comments from white people who aren’t as hip as they think they are) to the decidedly malicious (Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, not to mention hundreds or thousands of black men we don’t know about), one simple truth is frequently ignored by commentators of both a white radical liberal or a Black Nationalist bent: Race obscures issues in America rather that clarifying them.… Read the rest

Teabonics is a Flickr set exploring the vibrant and exciting new brand of English language emerging from the Tea Party protests. Don’t worry, it’s easy to get started on a sign of your own written in Teabonics.